Victorian Age & 20 th Century
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Victorian Age&
20th Century
What happened in the VictorianAge?
1830-1900
Ø 1837 Start of Queen Victoria’s reign
Ø‘the sun never sets on England’
ØHuge growth of cities
ØHuge growth of social problems
This resulted in:
ØBig difference between rich and poor
Ø 1.5 million unemployed people on poor
relief
ØGradual political reform
Child Labour
Schools were bad too
DARWINØ1859 Darwin “Origin of
Species”
ØDiscoveries in geology
Literature
Ø Literacy rose from40 % to 90%
Ø Problems in society
Ø Instalment system
REALISM
Themes in novels
Ø Morality
Ø The treatment of children
Ø Romance
Ø‘growing disillusionment with traditionalmoral values’
.The novel
Didactic rather than a formof personal expression
Social rather thanindividual
PoetryØ Uncertainty and spiritual doubt
Ø Struggle of humans against indifferentnatural forces
Ø Dramatic monologue
What happened in the 20 th
century?Ø 1914-1918 WW1
Ø 1929 Wall Street Crash
Ø 1940-1945 WW2
Ø By 1950 welfare state
Ø 1960s centre of culture
Ø 1970s economic crisis
Ø 1979 Thatcher (until 1990)
Ø 1982 Falklands war
Literature
After WW 1: disillus ionment
After WW 2 ‘little Englandism’
70s &80s : Pos tmodernism
Literature in English
Literary Genres
Ø Theatre of theabsurd
Ø Stream-of-consciousness
Ø Dystopian novels
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